Investment and Monitoring Administrator

Job summary

About us

We are an arm’s length body of the Welsh Government, responsible for the strategy, funding and oversight of:

• further education
• higher education including research and innovation;
• apprenticeships
• adult community learning; and local authority maintained school sixth forms.

We work in close collaboration with our partners to enable a tertiary education and research system which is centred around the needs of learners; society; and economy with excellence, equality and engagement at its heart.

Our values really matter to us, they help shape the culture of our organisation:

• Dysgu (to learn; to teach; to educate) - learning is at the heart of everything we do. We believe curiosity fuels innovation and helps expand our horizons.
• Cydweithio (to work together; to collaborate; to co-operate) - we can achieve far more together than we ever could alone.
• Cynnwys Pawb (to include everyone; to involve everyone) - we are passionate about inclusion, seeking to create the right conditions for everyone to achieve their full potential.
• Rhagori (to exceed; to excel) - we have high aspirations for tertiary education and research in Wales and always set high standards for ourselves to be the best we can be.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident employer and accredited as a Living Wage employer.

Location

Our headquarters is in 2, Capital Quarter, Cardiff, which has been specifically designed to meet our needs. This is where most colleagues will meet to collaborate, both with each other and with stakeholders.

As we operate across Wales, we also have limited office and collaboration space in Welsh Government offices in Llandudno Junction, Aberystwyth, Swansea and Merthyr Tydfil.

Main purpose of the job

The Investment and Monitoring team is responsible for the investment and monitoring of a budget in excess of £1bn, allocated for the provision of education at FE colleges, Local Authority Sixth Form and Community Learning and Apprenticeship providers as well as funding and monitoring of other higher education funding streams for teaching, research and innovation.

Your role will be to coordinate the administration needs of the team in a bilingual environment, confident to support and respond in Welsh or English equally. This will involve providing a high-quality operational support service through managing staff calendars, coordinating meetings and being a key point of contact for communicating with internal and external stakeholders both verbally and in written form. This role will be essential to the success of the team.

Job description

What you will be doing

• Supporting logistical arrangements for the work of the Investment and Monitoring team including minute taking, meeting arrangements and communication with providers.
• Dealing with communications bilingually in both Welsh and English
• Providing administrative assistance on the delivery of investment and monitoring processes.
• Scheduling internal groups and external meetings and events, including welcoming external stakeholders, being a point of contact for queries in advance and at events.
• Providing general administrative duties including printing papers, processing translation requests, raising purchase orders, records management to ensure compliance with legislative and statutory requirements, and maintaining electronic distribution lists.

Key challenges

• Following established policies and processes with precision.
• Coordinating busy diaries.
• Establishing good working relationships across the organisation and with external stakeholders to support the delivery of colleagues’ work.
• Ensuring that information, including sensitive information, reaches the correct people in a secure way, enabling them to respond in a timely manner.

About your team

The Investment and Monitoring team plays a pivotal role in ensuring the compliant and effective use of the budget made available to Medr. The team is responsible for deriving, allocating and monitoring funding across the entire tertiary education sector. They work across Medr with policy, data and analysis, finance and performance teams to ensure our strategic priorities are funded and offer the very best value for money. They have developed credible and strong working relationships with partners and keep abreast of emerging priorities such as net zero and Welsh language provision. The team will work with both internal and external stakeholders using a co-production approach to refine existing funding methodologies and to design and implement new funding approaches to achieve policy priorities.

The team includes 13 people who are geographically dispersed within the Development, Investment and Performance Directorate. This team is made up of some experienced people and with additional team members to be appointed.

About your line manager

Gareth is the Head of Tertiary Investment and Monitoring and has recently started his role on the 27th of August.

Prior to joining Medr, Gareth jointly led the school improvement team in Ceredigion Council. Prior to this he was a Programme Area Manager for General Education within the Further education sector. He was a lecturer at both further education and higher education in Mathematics.

Gareth received a doctorate, master’s and undergraduate degrees in Mathematics from Aberystwyth University.

Person specification

What you will bring

Attributes

• Resilient - You remain calm and focused in challenging situations.
• Drive - You take initiative to complete tasks efficiently and effectively.
• Agile - You are flexible and able to manage different tasks and priorities.
• Accountable - You are considerate of the impact of your actions on other people.

Experience

• Experience of working with people in a professional environment.
• Ability to decipher information and communicate it clearly and effectively.

Languages

We have evaluated that the Welsh language requirements for this post are essential.
Welsh essential means that having Welsh language skills is considered a requirement for this post and will form part of the assessment criteria.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £27,316, Medr contributes £7,913 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Your perks and benefits

We recognise the importance of looking after ourselves in work and in life, so in recognition of this we provide:

• 34 days annual leave a year (pro rata)
• An environment that embraces work life balance.
• A culture that celebrates diversity and welcomes everyone.
• Dedicated well-being time to all our people each week.
• A Cycle to Work Scheme to make owning a bicycle more affordable.

Additional Support when you need it

We know that sometimes you may face challenges or life events that mean you need additional support.

• We provide a comprehensive employee assistance programme with remote access to resources and in person support whenever required.
• We have a special leave policy ensuring everyone in the organisation receives the support they need during difficult times.

More than just a workplace

• You will be entitled to take 5 days paid leave per year to undertake voluntary work to support the communities we serve.
• We will encourage you to grow your networks across Wales, the UK and internationally.
• We have an active social committee who offer a range of activities for our people to come together outside the work setting. You can participate as much or as little as you want.

Personal and professional development

• Once you’re offered a post, we will get to know you and work with you to develop a personalised onboarding plan which considers your experience, skills, learning style and knowledge.
• We’ll help you shape your development plans with personalised career conversations and objectives, taking account of delivery goals alongside your career aspirations and helping you own your career.
• We support all our staff to learn or improve their Welsh language skills.

Things you need to know

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance (opens in a new window) for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Selection process details

We are really interested in you as an individual and what you will bring to our organisation.

Our assessment process is designed to help us get to know you better enabling us to appoint someone who will thrive in the role and who shares our organisational values.

If you are interested in working with us, please send us your application and personal statement through Civil Service Jobs.

The following attributes/experience will be assessed at sift stage:

The following attributes will be assessed at sift stage:

• Drive - You take initiative to complete tasks efficiently and effectively.
• Accountable - You are considerate of the impact of your actions on other people.
• Resilient - You remain calm and focused in challenging situations.

Experience

• Experience of working with people in a professional environment.

Welsh Language - essential

• Dealing with communications bilingually in both Welsh and English

To be fair to everyone who applies, we won’t accept:

• Late applications
• Applications with missing or incomplete information
• Personal statements over 1,250 words

The deadline for application submission is Sunday 31 May.

Applications are welcome in Welsh and will not be treated less favourably than those submitted in English.

All applications will be notified of their outcomes via Civil Service Jobs at sift and interview stage.

Candidates who successfully navigate the sift stage will be required to complete an online exercise to enable us to determine their behavioural and personality preferences. Immediately on completion you will be given a report which highlights your strengths plus some development tips to help you prepare for interview. Candidates should note that the online exercise is not intended to eliminate anyone from consideration. Instead, it serves as a tool to aid in the decision-making process.

Following this, you will be required to participate in an interview and a in-tray exercise, both of which will be conducted in Welsh on Wednesday 24 June.

The in-tray exercise as part of the interview will require you to prioritise information and communicate this information through the medium of Welsh.

In addition to the attributes assessed at sift stage, the remaining attributes will also be assessed at interview:

Attributes

• Agile - You are flexible and able to manage different tasks and priorities.

Experience

1. Ability to decipher information and communicate it clearly and effectively.

We strive for a diverse and inclusive workplace and we want to help you demonstrate your full potential whatever type of assessment is used. We are happy to discuss any person-centred adjustments required to the recruitment process. Please contact swyddi@medr.cymru

We're looking forward to meeting everyone invited to interview at our headquarters in 2, Capital Quarter, Cardiff. We don’t usually pay travel expenses, but if this presents a real barrier to your attendance in person or if you require a reasonable adjustment, please let us know in advance by emailing swyddi@medr.cymru so we can discuss and agree arrangements prior to your interview.

Following interview we are committed to offering constructive and actionable feedback to support you on your future career journey.

Next steps

Interested…? Want to find out more?

We know how important it is for you to find out more about us so we will be holding a virtual information session for candidates on Thursday 21 May at 1pm on Microsoft Teams. This session will not be recorded.

This will be an opportunity for you to hear more about our organisation; the role and how we invest in our people.

If you would like to attend, register by emailing swyddi@medr.cymru.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see theCivil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

Apply and further information

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job contact :

• Name : People and Culture team
• Email : swyddi@medr.cymru

Recruitment team

• Email : swyddi@medr.cymru

Attachments

Swydd Ddisgrifiad - Gweinyddwr Buddsoddi a Monitro Opens in new window (pdf, 295kB)Job description - Investment and Monitoring Administrator Opens in new window (pdf, 291kB)Canllaw i Ymgeiswyr ar Lunio Datganiad Personol Opens in new window (pdf, 112kB)A Candidate's guide to crafting a personal statement Opens in new window (pdf, 113kB)